Temporary Protected Status re-registration for Somali refugees now open

Monday August 27, 2018

(KMSP) - The United States Department
of Homeland Security announced Monday that people with Temporary
Protected Status (TPS) under Somalia’s designation who want to maintain
their status through the 18-month extension period ending on March 17,
2020 must re-register between Aug. 27 through Oct. 26.

TPS was
first approved for Somalia back in 1991 because of the country’s brutal
civil war. However, if protections end, those refugees would be forced
to leave the country or face deportation.

Re-registration procedures, including how to renew employment authorization documents,
have been posted online at uscis.gov/tps. All applicants must submit
Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status. Applicants may
also request an employment authorization document by submitting a Form
I-765 at the same time or separately at a later date. Both forms are
free for download at uscis.gov/tps.

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USCIS will issue new employment authorization documents with a March
17, 2020 expiration date to eligible Somalia TPS beneficiaries who
re-register and apply in a timely manner, but due to processing times
not all re-registrants will receive new documents before their current
ones expire on Sept. 17, 2018. With those delays in mind, the government has automatically extended the validity of those Sept. 17 expiration documents for 180 days, through March 16, 2019.

On
July 19 the Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced
the Temporary Protected Status for refugees from Somalia, many of whom
live in Minnesota, would be extended for 18 months.

"The decision
to extend TPS for Somalia was made after a review of the conditions
upon which the country’s designation is based," Secretary of Homeland
Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen said in a statement. "Following careful
consideration of available information, including recommendations
received as part of an inter-agency consultation process, the Secretary
determined that the conditions supporting Somalia’s designation for TPS
continue to exist. Thus, under the applicable statute, the current TPS
designation must be extended."

Approximately 500 Somalis currently have TPS.

Activists
with CAIR-MN expressed disappointment that TPS was only given an
extension and was not reinstated, which means Somali nationals who came
to the U.S. after May 1, 2012 will not be eligible for TPS.